1. Technical Field
Apparatuses and methods consistent with exemplary embodiments relate to an electronic device, and more particularly, relate to a device capable of verifying firmware, a mobile system, and a firmware updating method.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, there has been a rise in the development of mobile systems, such as smart phones, tablet personal computers (PCs), digital cameras, multimedia (e.g., MP3) players, personal digital assistants (PDAs), wearable smart devices, etc. As the amount of multimedia to be driven and the amount of data to be processed increase, mobile systems including high-speed processors have increased. A mobile system may drive (e.g., execute) a variety of application programs. For example, a mobile system may execute a variety of application programs for electronic payment, maps, camera, multimedia reproduction, Internet browsing, file sharing using a near field communication (NFC), etc. To drive a variety of application programs, the mobile system may incorporate semiconductor devices such as a working memory (e.g., dynamic random-access memory (DRAM)), a nonvolatile memory, and an application processor (hereinafter, referred to as “AP”). Also, the mobile system may include an NFC capability for electronic payment, a semiconductor device for Bluetooth, etc.
Some devices or components of the mobile system may be driven as hardware via firmware, regardless of an application program or an operating system (OS). Such firmware can be updated for stable performance and bug correction after shipping. However, hacking of devices of the mobile system has increased and hacking techniques have advanced. Thus, there is benefit to a high security level on firmware of devices of the mobile system.
Upon firmware update on devices of the mobile system, updating devices using erroneous firmware must be prevented. Also, an operation (e.g., rollback operation) that returns a firmware to a previous state when a firmware update operation fails should be included. Including such operations, however, may raise the unit cost of production of the mobile system. Accordingly, there is benefit to a mobile device including such operations that has a reduced unit cost of production.